Editor's Blog

Set Sail with Jefferson's Bourbon

Will a 150-year-old transportation method affect the taste and finish of bourbon?

By Janice Hoppe

Jefferson’s Bourbon founder Trey Zoeller has a theory that recreating bourbon’s first voyage from 150 years ago could impact the taste and maturation process.

“My personal theory is that as the bourbon constantly sloshed around in the barrels, the constant contact with the wood accelerated the maturation process,” he explains. “The barrels also sucked in the salt air and the sun caramelized the sugars in the wood and sped up the maturation process, producing a much different final product than we know today.”

How’s it different? “It’s a bourbon that, in my mind, tastes much more similar to Jefferson’s Ocean than bourbon that is now aged in Kentucky – that’s what made Kentucky bourbon so desirable and unique 150 years ago and why buyers in cities like New York, Philadelphia and Boston demanded the bourbon from Kentucky and were willing to pay more for it,” Zoeller says.

Jefferson's Journey

Calling his excursion Jefferson’s Journey, Zoeller set sail on July 7 down the river system of Middle America aboard a 23-foot Sea Pro boat with two barrels of bourbon. He plans to arrive in New Orleans in early August for a launch party in partnership with Chef John Besh, award-winning chef, restaurateur, cookbook author and philanthropist.

To celebrate the first leg of Jefferson’s Journey, Zoeller and Besh will host a landing cocktail party and feature the best of Besh’s Creole, Southern fare complemented with Jefferson’s Bourbon cocktails and neat pours. “I am very excited to be part of this adventure of helping Jefferson’s Bourbon reenact its historic journey from Kentucky down the Ohio, Mississippi and from the Port of New Orleans to the world,” Besh says. “Trey embodies those rate passionate qualities that enables him to create the most interesting and exquisitely delicious bourbons on the market today and it’s an honor to be a part of that process.”

From New Orleans, the bourbon will be transferred to Besh’s renovated rum runner boat and transported to Key West with Zoeller and Besh before being loaded on a sailboat to sail north up the Atlantic Ocean to New York City. The trip will conclude with a tasting party at the end of September.